Go to From The Trenches, then to War Stories, then to posting Jan 13, 2009---------you might want to start with RF Warriers salivating teaser about me first, to sort of get a background. Then to my response.

Go to From The Trenches, then to War Stories, then to posting Jan 13, 2009---------you might want to start with RF Warriers salivating teaser about me first, to sort of get a background. Then to my response.

Might be enough to generate a laugh, or two.

Fossil

I found it.

You know, that plastic "high voltage" shield was on there right until the end. I bought some of the last go-carts from IGM. (got a good deal from Carl) Now I know why it's there!

I wonder how many remember the ATC stacked 55? This was a full 78 inch rack that held 55 carts, had a 1/2 inch thick aluminum cart deck that indexed up and down driven by two 3/4 inch lead screws hooked to a 1/4 horse motor.

These babys could index to the next lower shelf, shear the cart that just played, kick out all the busted parts, inject a new cart and play it without even a hint of effort.

I heard that actually happened at an NAB and the potential customer theyt were demonstrating it to was so impressed by how rugged it was---ordered two on the spot.

The Carousel was a 24 tray device that would only turn in one direction. It was able to be random accessed. The 24, 48 and 78 tray Go Carts could be rapidly randomly accessed and would rotate in the direction closest to the selected cart.

That looks like a Harris SC-90 Automation. It had a screaming fast Intel u-proc model 8008 that ran around 5 mHz. State of the art, dontcha know? They later switched to an 8080, which was just a bit quicker.

RGORJANCE wrote:I wonder how many remember the ATC stacked 55? This was a full 78 inch rack that held 55 carts, had a 1/2 inch thick aluminum cart deck that indexed up and down driven by two 3/4 inch lead screws hooked to a 1/4 horse motor.

These babys could index to the next lower shelf, shear the cart that just played, kick out all the busted parts, inject a new cart and play it without even a hint of effort.

I heard that actually happened at an NAB and the potential customer theyt were demonstrating it to was so impressed by how rugged it was---ordered two on the spot.

The Carousel was a 24 tray device that would only turn in one direction. It was able to be random accessed. The 24, 48 and 78 tray Go Carts could be rapidly randomly accessed and would rotate in the direction closest to the selected cart.

Fossil

I remember the 55's. We had the Gates version in 'Rapids, but it was ATC underneath the namplate. It was installed along with 4 Scully decks running Bonneville tapes and a pair of ATC time-announce cart decks running the oversized carts. The whole thing was shown off behind a big glass window for the public to see. Quite the thing in it's day. This was when I was a teenager, but remember it from tagging along with my Dad to work.
I forget the automation controller that drove it, but it used thumbwheels for programming and logged using adding machine tape. Perhaps you'll remember what that was, Bob? It was probably sold by Gates, most everything in that building back then was from Quincy. Serial #000 Gates Dualux II console. That console replaced a Collins 212-G, serial #001.
The 55 was replaced with a pair of Instacarts, the controller with an IGM "ram" system, the Scully's got moved to the AM and ran until the now-retired Audiovault went in.

Ran with three used Carousels when WMZK went on the air, Steve Brown over in Appleton has them in his basement now. Never so happy to see a piece of equipment retired, lol. They could also shear a cart in half it it didn't index fully out before rotating. If you were dumb enough to try to grab the cart by hand while it was ejecting you learned fast to never do it again. The go-carts would just break the plastic cart tray instead.

The thumb wheel Programmer was the SC-48. A few years later they came out with the RA-10, which allowed random selection of the Carousels.

I remember the Automation behind the glass at Rapids. That's where I first met your dad. Then a short time after that I met his buddy Jack from Manitowoc. Then I ran into the two of them at a WBA shindig. That was really a hilarious pair.